Category: Trip Log

An early trip in June to Blackbushe was followed by a nice day out at Hinderclay Meadows. Hinderclay were having a bit of a Covid secure fly-in which attracted around thirty or so participants. A good study of the approach and airfield information is required as rather unusually for an airfield, along with some trees at the threshold there are some high tension electricity cables running across the runway a little further in. One participating pilot had a very luck escape when he managed to clip the wires on his first approach.

Due to lockdown G-EJBI didn’t fly in April but May was a bit of a bumper month. Our first trip was an overfly of London Stansted airport, for a bit of sightseeing and a look at all the airliners parked up. Further trips during May were to Leeds East and Nottingham, both first visits for G-EJBI and both first visits for myself. The fuel price at these airports was about the lowest we could find, It’s always a good feeling to fill up with cheap fuel.

G-EJBI managed just the one flight in February flown by Andrew. March was a bit more active with a couple of local flights and a very nice day out with Oscar in the Spring sunshine visiting Duxford. Little did we know then, that this would be our last flight for a couple of months due to the lockdown restrictions.

It turned out to be our last flight of 2019. I had been to Shoreham many times about 40 years ago and always enjoyed the period feel of the Art Deco terminal. The purpose of the trip was to give our good friend Brian a trip. Brian has flown a good variety of great aeroplanes including the Hunter and 747, now he can add the Bölkow 207 to the list.

Lucy and I had a very pleasant trip to Rougham about 20 minutes fro Tibenham. They were having a bit of a fly-in with their very good control tower museum open to visitors. Quite a few interesting aircraft had made the trip including Bolkow 208 G-ATTR.

Andrew and I made the five minute flight from Tibenham to Old Buck to visit our avionics engineer. Back in 2018 we installed a Trig TY96 8.33 radio which has worked perfectly. The accompanying paperwork however needed updating.

I rarely fly G-EJBI on my own but this years trip to the LAA rally at Sywell was one occasion where I was alone. The number of arrivals puts some pilots off but the proceedures are good and quite straight forward. Do stick with the proceedures or ATC may well invite you for a chat after landing.

We are off to watch the British round of MotoGP at Silverstone. Having been given the ok to arrive at Turweston around 8.00am Andrew and I left Tibenham at 7.00am. The early morning mist and low sun made for a good photo opportunuty. I am always gratefull for the high quality pictures of G-EJBI that are posted online.

Back at the end of August, Lucy and I flew G-EJBI to Turweston. We enquired about the airfields availability the following weekend as we hoped to use it for a visit to the nearby Silverstone Circuit. They could not have been more helpful, offering us the opportunity to arrive before their usuall Sunday opening time and allowing a late departure if required. The facilities are excellent and this level of helpfulness really put a smile on my face.

A few of the flights I made in August were with my eldest daughter Lucy. We took the opportunity to fly a few navigation exercises around East Anglia and we also flew a trip to Calais. Lucy is about to complete her PPL training with Premier Flight Training at Norwich so hopefully soon she will be taking me for some flights in G-EJBI.